The Ads Are Watching You

Love them or hate them, advertisements are part of how businesses market themselves and are here to stay. What may not be so usual is that although ads are made to be watched by potential consumers, the ads may be watching back. If that sounds bizarre, consider what Corinne Purtill reported in a piece for the atlantic.com penned six months back: London pedestrians that summer who glanced at posters for an innocuous coffee brand called Bahio probably didn’t realize they were supplying data for what its creators are calling “the world’s first-ever artificially intelligent poster campaign.”

The product of M&C Saatchi, Posterscope, and Clear Channel, the posters collected more than 42,000 reactions over summer, according to The Guardian. In response to privacy concerns, M&C Saatchi insists that the company did not save “anything recognizable.” READ MORE